


Mermaid Rescue

by AWonder1



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Baby Keith (Voltron), Caretaking, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Mermaids, Mermen, Merpeople, Nets, Rescue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26310163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AWonder1/pseuds/AWonder1
Summary: While mermaids are common knowledge, merfolk are not actually all that common. That’s why when word is spread that a mer is being made to fight in an underground arena for criminals to bet on, action must be taken. OrBaby mer keith was born into a hard life of fighting every day just to live another day, but when strange humans come and take him away, he doesn't understand what is happening nor what they want.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 122
Collections: Rescue Mer Fics That I Like





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First time putting something out on this site, and still figuring it out. Anyway enjoy, leave a comment, and feel free to ask questions.

The rescue:

Keith could feel the water around him tremble with the roar of the audience around the arena. He hoped he wouldn’t have to fight today. The slash on the base of his tail he got from his last battle still throbbed with every small movement. It wasn’t fair! He wasn’t supposed to be fighting for his life and the entertainment of humans. He was far too young to even be away from his mother, but they had taken her away to the arena about a year ago and she never came back.

Keith wasn’t naive anymore. He knew his mother was dead, that the humans had killed her, or pitted her against something too fearsome for even her. Now he was all alone with no one to care for him, and fighting to live just one more day.

He often wondered what the point of continuing was. If living was even worth it, if all he would ever do is fight and kill other creatures to keep himself alive, but in the end he didn’t want to die. He just hated the fighting, killing, hurting, and the pain.

Heavy footsteps began to approach his tank, and he let out a whimper of fear as he swam down to the bottom to try and hide. He knew it was useless to hide. He would have to breach for air eventually, and even if he didn’t they had long capture poles that they would hook around his wrists, tail, or even sometimes his neck and haul him up out of the water and onto a sling. From there they would wrap him up so he couldn’t bite or claw at them before they carried him into the arena and dump him into the tank with some other angry and agitated sea creature to fight.

His tail gave an angry throb, reminding him that his chances of winning a fight today were rather slim. A long pole poked down into the water and began fishing around in the water trying to find him. With a wail of fright he used his hands to pull himself away to avoid hurting his tail even more, but just then the noise of the crowd around the arena changed.

Instead of the cheers for bloodshed, they became cries of fear, and a new loud short piercing sound that Keith had never heard before. The pole that was searching for him was dropped in the water and the man standing over his tank quickly began to run away. Suddenly there was the harsh bang of a door being flung open and smashing into a wall as a swarm of loud heavy footsteps entered into the back room with all the tanks.

Keith could both hear and feel all the feet running around above him as he stayed hidden in the gross green water of his tank. There were more of those loud short bangs, along with loud shouting. It all continued for about an hour before it began to get quieter. The bangs had stopped, the footsteps had all slowed down from their hurried pace, and the shouting had calmed down as well.

Unfortunately, by this point, Keith had held his breath for as long as he could and had to breach for a quick breath. With a strong push from his hands on the bottom of the tank he made it to the surface in less than a second. He then just barely peaked his mouth out of the water and took in a large breath before retreating back to the bottom with a small flick of his tail.

That small disturbance of the water was apparently all that was needed to gain the attention of the humans above him. Several sets of footsteps approached and ringed the edge of his tank.

Keith nervously looked up to try to see what was happening, but the water was too cloudy to see anything. Luckily that meant that they couldn’t see him either.

All of a sudden, a net was dropped into the deeper end of the tank. The bottom edge of it was pulled down with weights to settle on the floor of the tank. He eyed it wearily and then shrieked in fright when it began to move towards him, corralling him towards the shallower side of the pool. Now he was only about five feet under the water, and the humans above could make out his silhouette under the water’s surface.

He was moving nervously with his hands, trying his best not to move his tail, when something sharp and painful stabbed into his back, right between his shoulder blades. With a whimper he tried to reach behind himself to grab whatever hurt him, but it was too awkward of a place to reach. He struggled with it for a moment, when he was suddenly hit by a wave of weakness and dizziness.

With a moan of discomfort and fear, he sank down to the floor of the pool and laid still. A splash came from his left, and with difficulty he moved to look that way. A pair of booted feet were making their way towards him through the green depths. Crying out, he tried desperately to move away, but found himself unable to command his body to move.

The feet stopped right next to him before a pair of hands too came into the water and found both of his arms. With a firm, yet gentle grip they hauled him up and dragged him through the water to the side. Once there a sling was moved under him and he was picked up out of the water. This one was different though. He was used to the harsh and abrasive ones that were used before. This one was soft and cradled him gently.

As soon as he was out of the water he felt hands all over his body and he let out a growl of warning. The humans above him were talking to each other in that nonsense language of theirs as they did whatever they pleased.

The sharp thing in his back was removed much to his relief, but they were quick to put a muzzle on him after he growled. Something soft and squishy was forced between his sharp teeth before soft straps were fitted over his nose, under his chin, and behind his head. He weakly moved his clawed hands towards his face to try and remove the strange device, but they too were seized and fitted with padded mittens secured snuggly around his wrists.

After they made sure he couldn’t hurt them or himself they wrapped a cool wet blanket over him and carried him away. It was quite surprising how soft and gentle everything was. He was expecting the usual harsh and sharp chains and wires that bit painfully into his flesh. Instead he was cocooned in softness and held with care.

He buried his face into a fold of the blanket as they moved out of the final door and into the blinding sunlight of outside. A stretcher was wheeled over to them and he was laid down on his back upon the padded surface. He closed his eyes to the harsh sunlight as they moved him towards a roaring truck. Once they reached it he again was pricked by something small and sharp, this time on his hip where his two halves joined. He let out a faint whine before everything fell away into darkness.


	2. Rescue Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rescue team's point of view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From what I gathered from the reviews, it seem you all like the idea of both teams being involved. One for rescue operations, and one for nursing/rehabilitation. 
> 
> I really like XDemonicAngelX's Idea/suggestion of having the Blades also being mers and working towards helping our young Keith, so I think I may go that route unless someone else comes up with a better idea/suggestion.
> 
> I'm open to anything, so please guide me with suggestions. :) 
> 
> Enjoy the story!

Chapter 2: Rescue Part 2

The Voltron Oceanic Rescue, Research, and Rehabilitation Center, often got tips and leads into abuse and endangerment cases for all kinds of marine wildlife. However they very rarely got them for Mermaid abuse. 

Mermaids were a highly endangered species with only about 100 left in the wild and about 100 in recorded captivity. However due to their intelligence, beauty, and their nature as an extremely capable predator, they are the favored targets for illegal fighting rings and for private collectors. 

Voltron was one of the few facilities in the world that had proper government authority to care for and keep mers. At the moment they only had four, all of which came from the same fighting ring. 

Despite coming from the same aggressive environment, the four adult males were gentle and kind to one another and formed a close pod. That was something the team was very grateful for. Oftentimes mers were kept in solitary conditions in captivity for one reason or another, but mers are a very social species and will suffer mentally and emotionally if kept in isolation. 

That is why when word of a single baby mer in an underground fighting ring came to them, they acted faster than they ever had.

Within a day of learning of the young mer’s existence, their main hacker and cyber intelligence expert, Pidge, AKA Katie Holt had managed to track the location of the ring, The time of the fight, and the number of people in attendance.

With all the information they needed now gathered, their rescue department leader, Shiro could now launch a team for retrieval and have the local law enforcement join for the arrest of all involved in the illegal activities. 

The operation went smoother than anyone could hope for. The initial storming of the building went off without a hitch, and all the spectators and leaders were arrested. Once the law enforcement had cleared the building, team Voltron was able to enter the building and proceed with their rescue operation. 

Upon entering the back of the building the team was greeted with tanks upon tanks of all kinds of ocean life and even some non ocean life. There were plenty of tanks with sharks, venomous fish, octopuses, dolphins, and other such creatures, but there were also cages with large cats, bears, wolves, and even some gorillas. 

This was easily the largest fighting ring they had ever busted.

“This is horrifying!” Hunk said as his face began to get a green tint to it. 

“If you're going to be sick, don’t throw up around me!” Lance said as he took a step away from his larger friend. 

“Focus you two, we still have a mission to complete,” Shiro said as he walked over to Matt and Allura who were taking inventory of what creatures they needed to save. 

“What are we looking at here?” he asked as he peaked at the list in Allura’s hand. 

“Sadly, a lot of these fish are on the invasive species list. Not to mention nearly all of them look sickly. They will need to be euthanized, however some of the sharks and all the mammals we can take with us back to the center,” she said. 

“There is one problem though,” Matt chimed in. “We haven’t found the Mer yet.”

“That’s alright, we’ll find them as we start removing everybody and loading them into the trucks,” Shiro reassured. 

With that the team got started. They had five trucks loaded with the marine animals and had another organization arriving for the other non marine animals, but no mer yet. They were beginning to think they may have been too late for the mer when Lance noticed a splash in a tank they had assumed empty. 

“Hey guys, there’s something in this tank!” he called. The rest of the team went over to see, but with how dirty the water was, none of them could see what was in the tank. 

“It looks like this is a sloped pool. Let's get a net down in the deep end and coral whatever is in there to the shallows,” Shiro ordered. With that, Hunk and Matt dropped a weighted net down and slowly began to drag it towards the other side. A distressed chip came from the pool as a shadow darted towards the shallows and circled nervously. Once they could see the shape of the creature under the water the whole team gave a small cheer. This was the mer they had come to rescue! 

“Look at the way the tail isn’t moving. There is definitely something wrong,” Matt said as he and Hunk Stopped moving the net so they wouldn’t stress the poor thing out too much. 

“You’re right. We’ll have to be careful that they don’t struggle and hurt themself. Lance, you’re our best shot. Do you think you could tag them with the tranquilizer gun from here?” Shiro asked. 

“Piece of cake!” He answered as he carefully sighted the shadow. Once he had a good sighting he took the shot. With a scared and slightly pained yelp, the shadow darted away from where lance stood and swam in distress, obviously trying to get at the spot that Lance had tagged it. About ten minutes later, the mer gave up and sank down to the bottom of the pool. 

“Alright. I’m going to go in and get the mer. I want the rest of you to be ready with the sling, muzzle, and mittens if we need them,” Shiro ordered as he slowly got in and approached the still figure. Once he was in the water, the mer screeched in fright, but didn’t move. Shiro carefully made his way over and reached in, finding the mer’s arms and gently pulling them to the side of the pool to the others.

Once there a sling was scooped under the Mer’s prone body, and they lifted the little mer out of the disgusting water. Matt’s attention went immediately to the large wound on the base of the mer’s tail, While Allura found the dart stuck to the mer’s back and removed it. 

With him out of the water and clearly visible, they all could now tell that the mer was in fact a male, and was a striking red with a lighter pinkish white underbelly.

He gave a small growl of fear with all the hands on him, and his eyes flicked around in nervousness. 

“Hunk, get the muzzle and mittens on him before he tries to bite someone. He may be littler than the others, but he’s still plenty dangerous,” Shiro said. 

“Right, I got it,” he responded as he carefully fit a piece of soft foam between the mer’s jaws for him to bite and worry on. Once that was in place he placed soft straps over the mer’s sensitive nose and under the chin to keep him from opening his mouth. Once the straps were properly in place he secured them behind the mer’s small head before then grabbing the padded mittens next to him.  
As soon as the muzzle was in place, the little mer whined in distress and started to reach with clawed hands to his face. Before he could reach his face, both Matt and Lance seized a hand, while Hunk quickly covered them with the mittens. Once the Mer was properly restrained, Allura wrapped a clean wet blanket over him. 

“Alright, let’s get this little guy out of here,” Shiro ordered. With murmurs of agreement they all grabbed the sling and gently carried the little mer out of the building and to the last truck. 

“We finally got him, dad!” Matt called as Sam came over to check what the last creature was.

“Good, I was beginning to worry. Lets get him on the stretcher and see what we have to work with,” Sam responded. They carefully laid him on his back, being mindful of his fins, and tail. They got him over to the truck where Sam took a quick look at him. “I’m going to go ahead and sedate him for the trip. He’s already very clearly stressed, and we don’t want to be adding to that,” Sam said as he prepared a needle. He then gently pricked the little mer on his hip where it wasn’t too sensitive. He gave a small muffled yelp before falling into a drug induced sleep. 

“Alright, Matt? Help me load him into the truck. I want to get a look at that tail of his on the way back to the center. I’m worried that we aren't seeing the full picture of what is wrong,” He said. With a nod, Matt helped his father secure the little mer into the truck as they made their way back to Voltron with all of their new rescues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment with what you want to have happen.


	3. Injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby gets a check up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long for an update. I promise the next one will not take nearly as long.  
> As always I LOVE comments, suggestions, and feed back. This story goes where you all lead it.

Chapter 3: Injury 

“Yep, it’s broken,” Sam said as he looked at the X-Ray image projected on his computer screen. He had treated the mer as best he could on the way back to Voltron, but during his inspection he could feel that there was something wrong with the bone placement in the tail. Once they had returned he immediately had the mer moved to take multiple X-Rays. 

Once the images were taken it became evident that the upper portion of the tail, where the human femur bones would be located had been cleanly broken due to blunt force. However, unlike humans, there were many more bones in a mer’s tail. A mer’s tail was more like an extension of the spine than anything else, however the spinal cord still ended just above the human tailbone. So while multiple small bones were broken, there was no danger of spinal damage. 

“It looks like we won’t need to do anything invasive. None of the bones are misplaced or splintered. All we need to do is cast and immobilize the tail, but this means that he will be on 24/7 observation until we can remove the cast and he can swim on his own again to get food and breach for air,” he continued. 

“He won’t be able to swim at all?” Hunk asked with a worried glance to the sleeping mer laying on a padded examination table. 

“He will probably try, but the added stress of trying to swim will just keep him from healing, or might even make it so that his tail heals incorrectly. The best thing to do would be to keep the little guy from moving too much,” Sam answered. 

“Why not just keep him out of the water then?” Lance asked. “No water equals no swimming.”

“We may have to consider that possibility if this mer shows to be too much of a danger to himself or others, however being forced to stay out of the water has shown to be very stressful to mers, plus their bodies are conditioned for living in the water. There can be many complications that arise when any ocean dwelling creature is forced out of the water for extended periods of time,” Sam answered.

“Very well then. How much longer do we have to get him settled in a recovery pool?” Allura asked. 

Sam Looked over to a few monitors that were attached to the little mer. After looking at a few of the readings he carefully placed a hand on the mer’s forehead and peeled an eyelid back before flashing a pen light back and forth for a moment. 

“Not long, he is already showing signs of regaining consciousness. He will be very groggy for the next couple of hours, but if we want to get him settled we need to get to work now,” he said as he began the process of binding the mer’s tail in a waterproof cast. 

“We have also been able to determine his age too by examining his teeth. He appears to only be about three years old. Way too young to be away from his mother and her milk. Typically baby mers continue to nurse from their mother’s until the age of five and begin to show signs of independence at the age of fifteen. Part of the reason his tail is broken in the first place is because he is showing signs of extreme malnourishment. He clearly has been away from his mother for a long time, and whatever they were feeding him was far from adequate,” Matt added as he helped his father by gently lifting and maneuvering the mer’s tail as needed. 

“So he will have to be held in the recovery pool to ensure that he can breach and he needs to be bottle fed,” Shiro said as a way of summarizing what needs to be done. 

Sam nodded as he finished off the cast and gently stroked the mer’s hair back as he gave a small whimper. 

“We really should get him settled before he fully wakes up,” Allura said as she turned to everyone in the room. “Let’s get him into a stretcher and to the recovery pool. Who is going to take the first shift holding him?”

“I will,” Shiro said with a raised hand. 

“Very well, go ahead and get suited up. We can handle getting him there,” She said. 

“Wait! Why does he get to be first to hold the cute little baby?” Hunk sulked.

“Yeah, I’m with Hunk, Why don’t I get to hold him first?” Lance interjected while Hunk sent him a baffled and slightly betrayed look. 

“Shiro is the most experienced with mers, plus he will be able to keep him still better than anyone else,” Pidge said distractedly, as she filed the mer’s information into their system. 

“Then it’s settled,” Allura said as she nodded to Shiro to dismiss him to change into a wetsuit. 

With a plan in place they carefully moved the slowly waking mer into a sling and carried him down the few steps into the four feet of water. Shiro quickly made his appearance and gently removed the sleepy mer from the sling and cradled him to his chest. Once he was out of the sling, Hunk came up and gently fitted the muzzle and mittens back on. 

“All right, let's dim the lights a bit then all clear out to let the little guy wake up and get accustomed to his new surroundings. Call on the radio if there is any sort of problem, Shiro,” Allura instructed. 

“I’ll come back with a bottle for him in a few hours once he wakes up a bit,” Hunk added. With that, everyone left, leaving Shiro alone with a semiconscious Mer.


	4. Stranger Danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our poor baby wakes up.

Chapter 4: Stranger Danger!

Keith couldn’t remember the last time he felt so secure. Actually he could. The last time he could remember being cradled in such strong and warm arms, was the last time he saw his mother. 

It was such a familiar and soothing feeling that he fully expected to see his mother’s smiling face when he eventually found the energy to open his eyes. For now though, he felt content just to doze in the gentle touch. Except something felt off. 

One of the arms didn’t feel right. It was hard and unyielding. It didn’t feel like flesh and blood, it felt dangerous. He instinctively started to make a distress call, but there was something in his mouth that muffled the call. 

It was soft and squishy, admittedly it felt good to sink his little baby teeth into, but it was still scary because he couldn’t force it out of his mouth. He was finally able to force his sticky heavy eyes open and shrieked. It was a human! A large intimidating male with a large scar across his face. It was a clear sign that this human was a fighter, but Keith didn’t want to fight! 

The condition he was in now, there was no way he would live through a fight with this human. Muffled trills, squeaks, and clicks escaped his throat as he desperately struggled in the humans strong grasp, trying and failing to get away. 

The human only held him tighter and closer in response to his struggle. The human began to make a strange low hissing sound as he rocked the terrified mer in his arms. 

Out of desperation, Keith shot up and tried to bite at the human’s exposed shoulder, but he only ended up pressing his nose into the man, the squishy thing in his mouth rendering his teeth useless. 

He started to cry out of fear and helplessness, as he felt the arms hold him closer and felt the man’s chest vibrate with that strange language of theirs, with a few of those hisses mixed in. 

Strangely, this large predator hasn’t hurt him yet. Maybe if he submitted, showed that he didn’t want to fight, the human might not hurt him? 

He pulled away from the man’s neck and managed to position himself belly up, bearing his neck and vulnerable stomach to this human. 

"Please don’t hurt me! Please don’t hurt me! I don’t want to die!" he chanted to himself. 

After showing his belly, the human made a weird cooing sound as he again held Keith closer to his chest. He still wasn’t hurting Keith. Maybe the submitting worked? 

They both stayed like that for a long while until there was the sound of a door opening. Another male human entered the room. This one was also quite intimidating with his large frame and he carried a strange object in his hand with a white liquid inside it. 

He was shifted and adjusted until he was cradled in one of the scarred human’s arms while the other held the strange object. The other human began to reach for his face and he had nowhere to go. He closed his eyes in anticipation, but the large human simply removed the squishy thing from his mouth. 

He opened his now freed mouth to lunge and bite, but before he could the scarred one forced one end of the object into his mouth and squeezed. Immediately his mouth was flooded with delicious milk! He quickly latched onto the fake nipple and nursed hungerly. 

Slowly his eyes started to droop closed as he fell into the soothing rhythm of feeding. The scarred human started to do that strange hissing and cooing again, but he wasn’t hurting Keith, in fact he was feeding him good milk! he hadn’t had anything this good since mama was taken away. 

The thought of that made more tears come to his eyes, but he continued to drink the good milk that the human gave him.

It ran out much too quickly for his liking. Once it was all gone the scarred one tried to pull it away and out of his mouth, but Keith refused to let it go. He clamped his little teeth firmly onto the fake nipple and sucked more forcefully, trying to make the milk come back. Keith whined loudly as again the scarred one tried to take it away. This time, the other human helped out by placing one of his large hands on the mer’s jaw and gently pressing his fingers into the soft spots. 

Keith was finally forced to release the fake nipple with a loud distress cry. With his mouth now free from any form of obstruction, the cries carried loudly all throughout the room and out the open door to the rest of the facility.   
Both humans were again making the strange cooing and hissing sounds as the squishy thing was brought back to his mouth. 

He didn’t want the squishy thing in his mouth again! It did feel good to bite and worry his teeth into, but he wanted the milk back!

He wiggled and squirmed around in the human’s arms in an effort to protect his face from the human with the squishy thing, and reached his hands out to the milk container. Another scared and startled cry left his lips as he brought his hands up to see that they were bound in soft padded cloth. He could still move his thumb, but all the rest of his fingers were forced to stay together, and his sharp baby claws were rendered useless. 

He opened his mouth and began to sing about his anguish at the injustice of it all, but he got interrupted in the middle of his howling by the squishy thing being secured into his mouth once more.

With a muffled whimper, he brought his useless hands up to his face to try to remove it, but it was already too late. He was trapped and bound at the human's mercy. 

Elsewhere in the facility, four pairs of finned ears shot up in alarm at the baby’s call for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was wondering, I see the muzzle acting as a sort pacifier.


End file.
